Robert Race, b. 1943, Farmers Wife, a hand-operated automaton, wood, painted wood, acorn cup, cotton thread, approx. 20cm high, 27cm wide, 10cm deep; together with a collection of automata by the same artist, to include: Pecking Bureaucrats, pendulum toy, wood, painted wood and plywood, cotton, stone, feathers, approx. 8.5cm excluding feathers, string and stone, 36.5cm wide, 1.8cm deep; Walking Bureaucrat, push toy, painted wood and plywood, metal pin and washers, feather, approx. 58cm high, 16cm wide; Ice Cream Couple, lever toy, wood, painted wood, painted plywood, approx. 9.4cm high, 23.1cm wide; and other lever toys and pendulum toys (9)

Sir Nicholas Goodison noted:

Farmers Wife: A cockerel and three hens peck at the grain that the farmers wife is scattering from her bowl as she turns round. Ingeniously the hens necks are attached in pairs to the small weight underneath and peck when the weight is displaced by a turning flange, while the wife is turned by friction on a contrate wheel.

Pecking Bureaucrats: The two bureaucrats, their noses like beaks, their arms stowed like closed wings, their bald heads with feather crests, eagerly peck in turn at the ground, as the stone underneath is swung, tightening and relaxing the cotton attached to base of the neck of each bird, pulling the neck and head up when tight and letting it drop when relaxed. This is a variant of the traditional pecking pendulum toy, usually with hens, made all over the world. Robert Race used the bureaucrat theme in other forms, see Walking Bureaucrat push toy.

Walking Bureaucrat: This is one of several toys by Robert Race on the theme of the bureaucrat, which he has also shown as a crested bird in pendulum toys, and as an un-crested acrobat. In this case, as with the other avian figures, the arms are like folded wings and the rotating legs give a passing impression of a busy small birds waddle.

Provenance:

Farmers Wife: Purchased, Robert Race, exhibition Robert Race: Moving Toys an Automata, Quaker Gallery, London, January 1994.

Pecking Bureaucrats: Purchased, Museum of Naïve Art, Bath, May 1991.

Walking Bureaucrats: Gift, 1994.

Ice Cream Couple: Purchased, Robert Race, May 1992.

Note: Robert Race, b.1943, exhibits his moving toys, automata, and kinetic sculpture in Britain and internationally.He is a member and past Chairman of the British Toymakers Guild. His work often incorporates a wide range of natural, re-used, and recycled material to make objects which move in simple but interesting ways.

Roseberys do not guarantee the working order of any automata or toy.